Hotel Plan Receiving Support From Naacp, Community

Broward County's black community stepped up its campaign on Monday in support of an African-American developer who wants to build a hotel next to the county convention center.

County commissioners logged dozens of phone calls in support of the project.

And the Fort Lauderdale branch of the NAACP repeated its threat of a black tourism boycott similar to one in Miami Beach in 1990 if the project is rejected at a County Commission meeting today.

"If [commissioners) vote no, I'm sure there will be some retribution," said NAACP President Roosevelt Walters at an afternoon press conference. "What happened in Miami would be a sweet dream."

The push might not have been necessary, however, because four of seven county commissioners appear to support the current hotel project.

Commissioners will vote today on whether to negotiate a final deal with Washington-based developer R. Donahue Peebles.

Peebles is proposing a 500-room Crowne Plaza Hotel and Resort adjacent to the Broward County Convention Center along the 17th Street Causeway.

Some commissioners have raised questions about Peebles's experience in building hotels, and have criticized the fact that he wasn't an initial applicant for the deal, but joined the process late.

Last week, the Broward County Hotel & Motel Association said the search for a developer should begin again, because Peebles' proposal contains too many subsidies.

But Peebles said he wasn't being subsidized, and the NAACP's Walters attacked that argument on Monday as hypocritical.

"The subsidies that were noted ... by the hotel/motel association were [a non-issue) when the proposed developer is white," Walters said. "Now that the proposed developer is black, there are objections."

Commissioner Sylvia Poitier said she would continue to push for the project when it comes for a vote today.

"Don't treat it different from the others - that's my only intent," she said.